This disclosure relates to the field of grasping irregular and deformable work pieces so as to lift and to hold the work pieces, whether packaged, processed, or raw, and to manipulate the work pieces for the purpose of material handling, assembly, packaging, and other robotic and automated manipulative functions.
ISO defines industrial robots as automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulators programmable in three or more axes. While motion control of industrial robots has reached a high level of sophistication and flexibility, difficulties relating to the most critical element of a robotic system, the end effector, or end-of-arm-tooling, have impeded adoption of industrial robots in many industry segments.
Common end effectors include welding devices, paint sprayers, grinders and deburring devices, and grippers. End effectors, and particularly the gripping types, are frequently highly complex, and highly customized to match the handled work piece. The end effectors may utilize various sensors to aid the robot system in locating, handling, and positioning products. However, technology has lagged in this area due to inherent difficulties in handling irregular objects and in producing gripping devices suited for a sufficiently wide variety of uses to generate the economies of scale required for widespread commercial adoption.
Many solutions have had inadequate software as well, leading to unforeseen side effects in attempting to manipulate natural products. Machine vision software, an important component to a successful industrial robot implementation, is often constrained by inadequate or irregular lighting encountered in real-world industrial environments. Thus, a better griping apparatus has been needed.